A Crucified Primate

A stone elephant, a crucified primate. My grandmother's pancake recipe. In 1989 in Rome, eating a cheese sandwich and drinking a stupidly small coffee near the Coliseum, I decided to go to Ireland, and did, and a lot happened there that subsequently made my mid and late twenties possible. Do not take those wings for granted son! Shadows on Main Street the day after rain. Chrisoula comes into the hay loft and asks what I'm doing and I tell her I'm trying to get at least knee-deep if not deeper into a particular swamp near the center of my psyche where a deceased aunt I never met resides and she says "do you think you can do that while making supper because it's almost five o' clock." Sputtering chainsaws. Frail bluets. At dusk by the river I apologize to trout hidden in deep currents, I explain I did terrible things to their ancestors but no longer and never again. Oh this darkness, oh this quiet - oh this thisness in which the repentant are allowed to remember they are forgiven. Touching the blind horse at midnight is a poem. Om shanti om shanti amen.